Spreading the net.

IN THE RACE TO CREATE A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY, A GLOBAL "NETWORK OF NETWORKS" OF PERSONAL COMPUTERS MAY OFFER THE FIRST REAL HOPE OF VASTLY ACCELERATING ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATIONS WORLDWIDE.

Between fourteen and nineteen Yanomami Indians were massacred by goldminers between the Hemosh and Xidea villages in the Yanomami territory in roraima state in the northern Brazilian Amazon. The dead include men, women and children who were decapitated with machetes...

--from a notice on Econet, a U.S. computer network, and its 12 international affiliate networks, on August 18, 1993.

Just got e-mail from a friend in Moscow saying tanks are "blasting away" at the White House...

--from an electronic mail message sent to the author by a Seattle-based friend the morning that troops attacked the Russian parliament building.

Environmentalists have always had an uneasy relationship with technology--and with good reason. From fossil fuels in the 19th century to organic chemical synthesis and nuclear reactors in the 20th, the unthinking application of new technologies has brought about a large share of the environmental problems that now threaten to undermine our future.

It is thus no surprise that many on the environmental front lines have greeted the rapid proliferation of computers with apprehension, if not suspicion. As media critic Jerry Mander puts it, "Computer technology has sprung us headlong into an entirely new existence." He and many others in the environmental movement see in the computer the technological epitome of all that is wrong with industrial civilization.

Indeed, it is easy to view computers, which were originally developed for the design of bombs and artillery, as simply the ultimate tool of the powerful institutions--corporations, governments, the military--that now dominate our world. There is little doubt that computers are now helping to accelerate the onslaught of the consumer economy and to consolidate the power of the large entities that control them.

But the computer revolution has another side as well--one that is just beginning to take shape. The linking of computers to one another, through the global wiring originally built to carry telephone conversations, is creating a new communications medium. Computer networks are changing how people connect with one another, get information, and organize around issues of common interest. And, despite their misgivings about the technology, many environmentalists and their allies have become forces in this revolution.

Networks are making activists better informed, better organized, and better able to react quickly to developments around the world. Consider, for example, the quotes at the beginning of this article. The first is from an Econet conference--a sort of electronic bulletin board--on rainforests. It appeared two days before the first appearance of the same news in the New York Times, and three days before its first mention in The Washington Post.

The bulletin on the Yanomami murders catalyzed a flurry of international organizing. Within hours, and long before the story showed up in traditional news media, additional bulletins provided addresses and fax numbers of senior Brazilian officials for those who wanted to express their concern and outrage. Protest vigils at Brazilian embassies and consulates in several cities were quickly organized, and dozens of environmental and indigenous rights groups put together a joint letter of protest to the president of Brazil. The second quote, from a computer note sent from Seattle to Washington, D.C., told of the climactic battle between Russian troops and hard-liners occupying the parliament building and--with the typical speed of computer networks--arrived a day before the same events showed up in the Washington newspapers.

BEYOND SPEED

Thousands of activists and organizations are embracing computer communications because it allows them to do things they could not do before. A lengthy document can go from London to Sydney in a few hours, or even a few seconds, depending on the system used. Electronic mail (e-mail) is cheaper than international phone calls, faxes, or express package services, and allows its users to bypass busy signals, erratic postal services, and schedule conflicts created by different time zones.

But it is not just speed that makes computer networks so different from other media. Perhaps even more important is their power to bring together people with similar interests. "The topic becomes the address," as computer writer Howard Rheingold puts it. A phone book--even a computerized phone book--only lists people by name or address, but electronic conferences organized around individual interests allow like-minded people to connect, regardless of geography. Birders and biologists, for example, can share information on migrations and rare and endangered species. And, as happened after the Yanomami massacre, people increasingly use global computer networks to bypass traditional media, getting their information directly from other people and institutions who share their concerns. The 13 networks of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), in particular, are used primarily by people concerned with the interrelated issues of human rights, labor, peace, world development, and the environment. All told, the system now links 17,000 users in 94 countries. APC users can send e-mail both to each other and to millions of people on other networks. And because all the APC systems share common operating software and regularly exchange messages, their users can read and participate in nearly a thousand worldwide conferences on virtually every topic related to sustainable development, as well as in thousands more conferences from other networks. Though the quality and level of participation in the individual conferences vary greatly, the information can be detailed, global, and breathtakingly up-to-date. On the day the Yanomami bulletin appeared, for example, the same conference on rainforests carried several news reports on the struggle of indigenous tribes in Sarawak (Malaysia) for land rights. Other APC conferences provided answers for people who wanted to find out about a proposed mine in a western Canada wilderness area, or the status of a fight against a new motorway in England. The APC networks played an important role in making it possible for citizens to participate before and during the June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Preparatory and draft conference documents began appearing in the system in late 1990, and final versions were made available at the end of the conference.

In Rio, APC's Brazilian member network, Alternex, set up temporary computer facilities for users who were attending the U.N. conference and the related meeting for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This made it easy for the various NGO representatives to report back to their offices on the progress of the meeting, work out lobbying positions, and communicate with the press back home. APC played a similar role at the 1993 United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.

Environmentalists are also making effective use of other systems, including private networks. Greenpeace, the world's largest and most far-flung environmental organization, has been using its own computer network to coordinate the group's activities for a decade. Its campaigners, for example, use the network to monitor international traffic in hazardous waste. They stay in virtually hourly contact, exchanging information about movements of waste by ship, train, and truck.

THE GLOBAL WEB

The usefulness of any computer increases dramatically when it is linked to other machines, since there are limits to the amount of information and the variety of programs that can be assembled on even the largest individual machine. Networks allow users to pool their resources.

Creating a small network--by wiring together all the computers in an office or school, for example--can make it possible to share printers, databases of contacts or clients, or a fax system. Larger networks put enormous resources and global communications at the fingertips of ordinary citizens. Those with small computers can gain access to machines thousands of times more powerful. Climate scientists in New York, for example, may develop programs on a small work station in their laboratory and then run them on a supercomputer in California or North Carolina, with the results fed back to their machine in New York. Thus the real revolution: computer networks serve not only as a rapid, interactive communications system, but as a research tool of unprecedented power.

From databases on pollution and its effects to the records of government hearings, legislation, and administrative actions, networks can not only open doors to previously hard-to-get information, but also provide the tools needed to sort through it.

The Right-to-Know Computer Network (RTK Net), based in Washington, D.C., offers its more than 800 users free online access to the U.S. government's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)--the database that tells which industrial plants are dumping what toxic chemicals, and where. Users can then combine this information with other government environmental databases, such as those on Superfund hazardous waste cleanup sites, or on pending environmental litigation. Some of these searches have generated enough press coverage and public attention to spur industry cleanup efforts. For instance, Florence Robinson of the North Baton Rouge Environmental Association, a Louisiana community group, has been combining RTK Net's TRI data with census information to demonstrate that the state's minority communities live with disproportionately high levels of toxic pollution. She has reported her findings in a series of papers, and testified on the subject at a U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing on environmental racism. Econet/Peacenet, the U.S. APC network, makes available a variety of useful databases, including the catalog of the Environmental Protection Agency's library system, a listing of environmental funding sources, a compilation of articles, institutions, and other information on energy-efficient technologies and policies, and one that lists fax numbers for various world leaders, press organizations, and every member of the U.S. Congress.

Activists and the general public can also find environmental information on commercial electronic services, although the cheaper commercial systems, such as CompuServe and America Online, offer more limited and general answers than those available from specialized networks such as Econet and RTK Net. More expensive systems--such as U.S.-based Dialog and Nexis, and DataStar in Europe--provide access to hundreds of bibliographic databases in virtually any subject area, as well as full-text access to stories in a variety of prominent newspapers, news services, and specialized journals. But with prices that can exceed $80 an hour, they cater primarily to businesses or large organizations. THE INTERNET

The largest world of on-line information is that of the Internet, the international computer network that may one day rival the global phone system in its scope and common design. Wholly owned or controlled by no one, it is a collection of nearly 1.5 million host systems--large computers on which many users, who may connect to them by telephone, have accounts--that communicate with each other via common technical standards.

Within or linked to the Internet are thousands of smaller networks, such as RTK Net and Econet/Peacenet, whose users often have limited access to the Internet. As these networks become more closely linked with the Internet, their users are gaining access to its universe of information. In turn, the Internet's 11 million users in more than 50 countries can now tap into the smaller networks' specialized resources.

The Internet originated in 1969 as a link between computer centers doing defense-related research across the United States. By the late 1980s, it had become an important link for other academic researchers--from English professors to physicists--and reached outside academic institutions and the borders of the United States. It is continuing to expand rapidly, with thousands of systems adopting Internet standards every month. Both the number of host computers and the volume of information flowing through the system are estimated to be doubling every five months.

The resources available on the Internet--which include the catalogs of the Library of Congress and many specialized databases--are growing as rapidly as the system itself. At last count, the Internet was carrying 135 electronically published journals. In addition, there are dozens of ongoing Internet conferences on environment- and development-related issues. And while the giant Internet is less specialized than the APC, it too offers access to myriad sources valuable to environmentalists, such as databases on energy use and the catalogs of environmental libraries.

The Internet can be difficult to use, and the amount and variety of information available on it can be bewildering. However, many host computers, including Econet/Peacenet, now offer special programs that allow users to search thousands of systems for information on particular topics--without knowledge of special commands or network addresses.

COMPUTER NETWORKS AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

At first glance, computer networking might seem of little consequence for the more than three billion people who live in developing countries. Those nations produce very few computers themselves, and usually suffer from chronic shortages of foreign exchange for importing them. They generally lack not only hardware, but programmers, service technicians, and spare parts. Their antiquated, overburdened, and sometimes nonexistent telephone and electric power systems make it difficult to operate computers or link them into networks. But these problems can be surmounted--and when they can, the benefits can be enormous. With computers, residents of developing countries can gain broad access to essential information from around the world--protocols for medical treatment, weather reports and crop market information, potential sources of funding--that health professionals, farmers, development workers, and others need to do their jobs better. Networks can link those in even the remotest areas, such as the Brazilian Amazon, homeland of the Yanomami, to the global information system, allowing them to send and receive messages as fast as or faster than by other methods--and usually more cheaply.

Those networks can also be a powerful force for democracy. Boston University professor and development writer Sheldon Annis observes that computer networks are now bringing information and new channels of communication to Latin America's poor. While the poor do not own computers and modems themselves, says Annis, they increasingly belong to organizations that do. Where these people have often been ignored by their own governments, they are now empowered by their access to computers--and to information about policy decisions that affect their lives. With this knowledge, they can organize to fight for their own interests.

Although individual computers are far less common in the developing world, computer networks already reach into the Third World, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. A few Internet and Bitnet connections reach academic institutions in those areas, giving researchers access to a wealth of files, services, and fellow users--particularly in Eastern Europe, where universities already have sophisticated computer systems and a reserve of technical specialists. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Organization of American States launched its Hemisphere-Wide Networking Initiative in 1991 to foster the interconnection of academic computer systems throughout the region.

But the academic networks are technically complicated and require costly, high-quality telecommunications lines, and as a result are not usually available in poorer Third World areas. Outside South Africa, they are almost nonexistent in sub-Saharan Africa, for example. Even where they do exist, they rarely reach outside of big cities, and primarily serve an affluent, well-educated pool of users.

GLOBAL REACH

Fortunately, there are other alternatives. The APC networks, with their focus on sustainable development and human rights issues, reach into dozens of Third World countries. While they offer somewhat less technically sophisticated systems and services than the academic networks--primarily conferencing and electronic mail--they provide valuable connections between NGOs and activists working on environmental and development issues.

In Brazil, for example, Alternex ties together 826 different organizations located throughout the country, including some in remote areas of the Amazon Basin. Nicarao has connected Nicaraguan activists with each other and the outside world since 1989, and now boasts 385 users. In Argentina, Ecuador, and Uruguay, similar services are provided by Wamani, Ecuanex, and Chasque. And since all the APC networks are tied closely together, their conferences reach far across borders and continents.

The RIO Network--a project of ORSTOM, a French public research institute--has 800 users in France and a dozen tropical developing countries in Africa, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean, with connections to six more countries planned for 1993. Originally designed to link researchers working on ORSTOM-related projects, the network now serves other scientists and NGOs working on development. The network is technologically sophisticated, linking a mix of high-powered scientific work stations and personal computers.

Third World computers can also gain access to the worldwide web of electronic networks through a grassroots networking program called FidoNet, developed by U.S. computer hobbyists. FidoNet is a low-cost method of linking together computer bulletin board systems through ordinary phone lines, and is particularly valued for its ability to overcome the limitations of inadequate phone systems.

FidoNet systems automatically contact each other at night--when phone rates are low--to exchange conference postings and electronic mail messages. They keep dialing until they make a connection, and do not stop transmitting until assured by the machine at the other end that all messages have been received free of errors. Regular connections, called gateways, between FidoNet computers and other systems such as the Internet and the APC networks, allow FidoNet users to communicate with virtually anyone who has an electronic mail address, with most messages reaching their destination within 24 hours.

FidoNet computers can even operate where no telephone system exists. "Packet radio" sets--small devices with simple antennas--are attached to a computer much like a modem, and can be used to exchange electronic mail and other data automatically. In areas where the computers are separated by long distances, packet radio sets can transmit their messages via low-orbit satellites, which then relay the information to other computers. Motorola is now developing a system of 77 such satellites that, when completed, will provide continuous coverage everywhere on earth.

These technologies are helping to get valuable information into the hands of people in remote areas. SatelLife, a Boston-based nonprofit organization, uses low-orbit satellites and electronic mail to distribute medical information in sub-Saharan Africa. Its Boston office has an account on Peacenet, which it uses to communicate with its African staff and clients with FidoNet connections. SatelLife's primary users are doctors at African universities, who can receive New England Journal of Medicine articles free of charge, as well as other medical information.

But the hardware must come first in developing countries. Some computer manufacturers have set up donation programs to get new machines to deserving organizations, but most have gone to educational institutions or nonprofit groups in industrialized countries.

Another solution is for users in the industrialized countries, where computers are quickly outmoded, to pass them on to Third World users who would be thrilled to have them. While Internet and other high-technology networks require powerful machines, many older, less sophisticated personal computers can run FidoNet programs, which provide a communications link that is as fast as a telex--at a fraction of the cost.

A few donation programs already exist. Since 1990, the East-West Educational Development Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, has funneled thousands of donated personal computers to universities, NGOs, and journalists in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The group tests donated machines, repairs them when necessary, and finds potential recipients. In 1992, it identified 200 times as much need for computers as it could satisfy.

NETWORKING FOR PEOPLE

The APC networks, RTK Net, and other progressive systems exemplify computer networks' potential as a force for positive social change. If networks are cheap, easy to use, accessible to all, and filled with useful information, they might strengthen participatory democracy, making it more likely that environmental degradation, poverty, and other problems get attention.

But electronic democracy will require much more than simply wiring up every home. Large corporations that already dominate other media are jockeying aggressively for position in the race to control the "information highways" of the next century. These giant phone companies, cable television firms, and film studios share a different vision of a networked world: 500 television channels, home shopping, and enormous profits to those who control the information pipeline and sell the programs it carries.

The computer networks of the future will undoubtedly be commercialized. But it is still an open question whether they will fulfill their potential to bring all of us--rich and poor, rural and urban--the information we need to make the difficult choices required for the creation of a sustainable society. Who will own or control the coming electronic web is not yet clear, but governments around the world are under pressure to decide. Whoever does win this control will hold enormous power.

If environmentalists and other public-interest groups do not play a greater role in this debate, they risk losing a great resource before it is created. Environmentalists have always fought for public information. Now they need to fight harder for electronic access to it.

NETWORKS

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is a worldwide partnership of computer networks focussed on sustainability, human rights, and social and economic justice. Contact the appropriate network listed below to obtain an account, or for general questions contact either of the APC Secretariat offices. APC International Secretariat Rua Vincente de Souza, 29 22251-070 Rio de Jainero, BRAZIL

APC North American Regional Office 18 De Boom Street San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

ALTERNEX (Brazil, South America) IBASE Rua Vicente de Souza 29 22251-070 Rio de Jainero, BRAZIL

CHASQUE (Uruguay, Paraguay) Casilla Correo 1539 Montevideo 11000, URUGUAY

COMLINK (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Zagreb, Beograd) Emil-Meyer-Str. 20 D-30165 Hannover, GERMANY

ECONET/PEACENET/CONFLICTNET/LABORNET (USA, Mexico, China, Japan, Middle East) 18 De Boom Street San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

ECUANEX (Ecuador) 12 de Octubre 622, Of. 504 Casilla 1712566 Quito, ECUADOR

GLASNET (Commonwealth of Independent States) ulitsa Sadovaya-Chernograizskaya, dom 4, Komnata 16, Third Floor 107078 Moscow, RUSSIA

GREENNET (Great Britain, Europe, Africa, Asia) 23 Bevenden Street London N1 6BH, UNITED KINGDOM

NICARAO (Central America, Nicaragua, Panama) CRIES Apartado 3516, Iglesia Carmen 1 cuadra al lago Managua, NICARAGUA

NORDNET (Nordic and Baltic countries) Huvudskaersvaegen 13, nb S-12154 Johanneshov, SWEDEN

PEGASUS

Australia, Pacific Islands, S.E. Asia) PO Box 284 Broadway 4006 Queensland, AUSTRALIA

SANGONET (Southern Africa) 13th floor Longsbank Building 187 Bree Street Johannesberg 2000, SOUTH AFRICA

WAMANI (Argentina) CCI Talachuano 325-3F 1013 Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

WEB (Canada, Cuba) NirvCentre 401 Richnond Street West, Suite 104 Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8, CANADA

POPTEL/GEONET (Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, the United States, and the United Kingdom.) 25 Downham Road London N1 5AA, UNITED KINGDOM

RTK NET The Right-to-Know Network (RTK Net) provides free access to the U.S. government's Toxics Release Inventory database and a variety of other data. 1731 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20009-1146, USA

BOOKS

Dan Rittner, Ecolinking: Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information (Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 1992). An excellent, though U.S.-focused, guide to environmental computer networking.

Ed Krol, The Whole Internet: User's Guide and Catalog (Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly and Associates, 1992). A highly readable overview of the Internet, its information resources, and how to reach them.

John Young is a senior researcher at Worldwatch Institute, and author of Worldwatch Paper 115, Global Network: Computers in a Sustainable Society.